“I was really happy I got to play a supervillain. I realize how badly I wanted to,” says Yara Martinez of her new role in Amazon’s adaptation of the comic book “The Tick,” which premieres Friday.

The show follows a dweeby accountant who enlists the help of the brawny superhero of the title to fend off a band of supervillains who threaten to take over the city.

Martinez, 37, who’s best known as the emotionally distraught Dr. Luisa Alver on “Jane the Virgin,” plays Ms. Lint, head of a weapons smuggling ring, who can shoot electricity and zap her opponents, sporting a creepy glass eye that pops out when she’s angry.

And because her static power attracts a buildup of particles, makeup artists had to pound loads of lint on her.

Yara MartinezJames Devaney/GC Images

“As an actress, it was very frustrating to have lint all over me,” Martinez says. And she also had to wear a contact that prevented her from seeing out of her left eye. “After a 14-hour day you get really exhausted — it’s a little harder to remember your lines, because I couldn’t see.”

But despite her wardrobe difficulties, Martinez says this is one of her favorite roles.

“[‘The Tick’] shows how these [villains] come from this place of loneliness,” she says. “ I can’t help but feel that I’m advocating for her.”

Oddly enough, her character on “Jane” took on a mean streak in the season finale. And while she was shooting it, in between “Tick” episodes, Martinez says that her Ms. Lint persona creeped up on her.
“It was weird having to play Luisa as evil while I was playing Ms. Lint,” she says. “At one point [my co-star] said that Ms. Lint was coming out … that my face is twitching … It was weird to find the right amount of evil.”

“The Tick” was filmed in New York City, and Martinez says she’s come a long way since moving to the city from Miami more than a decade ago to pursue acting.

“I remember a very different inner-monologue in my head when I was walking to wait tables and how much I hated it, as opposed to leaving my trailer to go to set and play a supervillian,” says Martinez, who’s currently based in LA. “That in itself is extremely rewarding.”